Railway workers threaten industrial action over monetised accommodation

Workers of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC),  under the aegis of the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers (NURW) have threatened to embark on industrial action if the corporations management fail to honour a court ruling which states that housing properties of the NRC be sold to the workers.

Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune in an exclusive interview, the President-General of the NURW, Comrade Saidu Garba bemoaned the delay in the implementation of the court ruling granted since January 2016.

According to him, “we have a court judgment which we won concerning the housing properties of the NRC. The court judgment was given on the January 6, 2016, but up till now, the houses of the NRC scattered across 27 states of the federation are yet to be monetised.”

Giving more insight into the monetisation of NRC housing properties, the NURW President General explained that, “in 2004, President Olusegun Obasanjo directed that all properties of the NRC, including houses, office equipment, vehicles etc should be sold to the first occupant, that is the railway workers.

“The management of the NRC implemented every other aspect of that directive except the housing part. They shared the corporation’s vehicles among themselves. Shared the office equipment among themselves, but have refused to sell the corporations houses to workers.

“When we realised they don’t want to implement the housing aspect, we went to court in 2011 and won in January this year. This is a Federal Government policy. It is a Federal Government circular that approved the sales of the properties. Why should the NRC management delay its implementation?

“If management persists, then they will leave us with no choice than to use all legitimate means to press home our demands, which include industrial action.”